Here’s Andrew Sullivan on BBC dishonesty:
This week was the week in which the BBC essentially capitulated in its war against the Blair government. Under cross-examination, the BBC’s reporter, Andrew Gilligan, admitted a series of what might politely be called “errors” in his claim that the British government had inserted fabricated intelligence findings in its now-famous Iraq dossier, compiled before the Iraq war. The whole notion that the government had lied was revealed as invention: “The allegation I intended to make was a spin. I do regret those words–and I shouldn’t have used them.” Isn’t that a big difference? A government putting the best spin on facts to make a case in a democratic society (that’s called politics) and outright deception? Mr. Gilligan also admitted that he wrongly “outed” the late scientist, David Kelly, as the source of some of the material, to members of Parliament. Being pushed into the public realm was the main reason Kelly committed suicide earlier this year.
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